tender girl, this lovely flower of the
South. Nothing could change him. The years would come and go--spring
and summer flowering in the forest, dancing once and tripping on to a
softer, gentler land; fall would touch the shrubs with color, whisk off
the golden leaves of the quivering aspen, and speed way; and winter,
drear and cheerless, would shroud the land in snow--and find his love
unswerving. The forest folk would mate in fall, the caribou calves
would open their wondering eyes in spring, the moose would bathe and
wallow in the lakes in summer, and in winter the venerable grizzly would
seek his lair, and still his dreams, in his lonely cabin, would be
unchanged. His love would never lessen or increase. He had held none
of it back; no more could be given or taken away. He had given his all.

But if he couldn't keep this knowledge from himself, at least he could
hold it from the girl. It would only bring her unhappiness. It would
destroy the feeling of comradeship for him that he had begun to observe
in her. It would put an insurmountable wall between them. Besides, he
didn't believe that she could understand. Perhaps it would only offend
her,--that this son of the forests should give her his love. She had
never dealt with men of his breed before, and she had no inkling of the
smoldering, devouring fires within the man. He would not invite her
pity and her distrust by letting her know.

Strangest of all, he felt no bitterness or resentment. This development
was only a fitting part of the tragedy of his life: first his father's
murder, his dreams that had never come true, his lost boyhood, his exile
in the waste places, and now the lonely years that stretched before him
with nothing to atone or redeem. He knew that there could be no other
woman in his life. It was well enough for the men of cities to give and
take back their love; for them it was only wisdom and good sense, but
such a course was impossible to such sons of the forest as he. Life
gives but one dream to the forest folk, and they follow it till they
die. He knew that the yearning in his heart and the void in his life
could never be filled.

Yet he didn't rail at fate. He had learned what fate could do to him,
and he had learned to take its blows with a strange fatalism and
composure. Besides, would he not have the joy of her presence for many
days to come? Their adventure had just begun: weeks would pass before
she could go home. I